The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 202: CHAP. 14. (12.)—DISTRIBUTION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS INTO VARIOUS SPECIES.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 14. (12.)—DISTRIBUTION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS INTO VARIOUS SPECIES.

The integuments of the aquatic animals are many in number. Some are covered with a hide and hair, as the sea-calf and hippopotamus, for instance; others again, with a hide only, as the dolphin; others again, with a shell,2303 as the turtle; others, with a coat as hard as a stone, like the oyster and other shell-fish; others, with a crust, such as the cray-fish; others, with a crust and spines, like the sea-urchin; others, with scales, as fishes in general; others, with a rough skin, as the squatina,2304 the skin of which is used for polishing wood and ivory; others, with a soft skin, like the muræna;2305 and others with none at all, like the polypus.2306